10 Animal-Free Meal Ideas from Your Pantry
In the face of a late winter storm here in the Northeast, my friend Stephanie blogged about using what you already have to make snow day meals, as opposed to making a mad dash to the store to pick up the usual staples out of the fear of being snowed in for days. Now, the Washington Post’s “A Mighty Appetite” blog is busy spreading the word on its Eating Down the Fridge Challenge, taking place the week of March 9. It sounds easy enough–avoid grocery shopping for a week, instead turning to all the items that have been languishing in your pantries, cellars, fridges, and freezers since God knows when for all your eating needs.
Always up for a food-based challenge, I started thinking about what sorts of items that were tucked away deep in the corners of my own kitchen. I’m vegan, so there’s tons of dried (and canned, you got me) beans, every nut, seed, and grain you can imagine, near-expired packages of tofu, frozen berries, frozen spinach… even some frozen carrot bran muffins from Trader Joe’s. With these items in mind, I created a list of ten meals that I’ll likely be preparing this upcoming week. Given the recent news that even grass-fed beef isn’t so hot for the environment, I’ll take this as an opportunity to say that all sustainable eaters should be looking to lower their consumption of animal products.
